I never had to put myself in somebody else's shoes.

Nobody roots for people who presume success. You have to earn success, and success is earned by making a movie that audiences like and want to see more of.

The hiring of Phil Messina, the production designer, was a big decision. He's so gifted, and his ideas were always so smart and rooted in American history and architecture. Nothing feels like it's not us, or couldn't be us, and I think that's very important.

The most powerful decision-making part of the audience is women. Boys have a lot of impact on the industry, but it's often women who impact what stories get made.

I felt that there were so many things that could go wrong, in adapting The Hunger Games , and I had this fierce desire to protect this book that she had written. At that time, I read the second book, in manuscript form, and so I saw where she was going with the series. I was able to convince Suzanne [Collins] to trust me with the books.

[On the racial backlash about Hunger Games casting]: "People should have ignored the five racist idiots.

I was an executive before I was a producer, and I've seen franchise fever grow, over the course of my career. The one thing that people always forget is that it's only a franchise if audiences really want to see more of it. It's up to them. It's really not up to us.